
We walked down South Bridge and Nicolson Street, which is just off the tourist track. On this street, you will also see a lot of student life, the diversity of the locals and a bit of ‘real Edinburgh’. In this area, is one shop I like to visit now and again: Jordon Valley where I have bought fresh home-made
halva. Unfortunately, when I got there we were greeted with a sign in the window ‘we will be closed this Friday …for
Eid al-Adha‘. Like many Americans celebrating
Thanksgiving, Muslims around the world were celebrating
Eid al-Adha.
Eid Mabarak. While roaming the streets and shops, one of our first snacks was a ‘
vegetarian haggis samosa’ from
The Baked Potato. It was spicy and tasty. I like looking in charity and thrift shops and stopped at most of them, hoping to find a bargain or two. I don’t send many Christmas cards, but decided to pick up half a dozen to send to family and friends abroad. I also stopped at one of my favourite independent bookshop called
WordPower and picked up an unexpected early Christmas present to myself:
Love Soup by Anna Thomas.

After our meal at Henderson’s we walked back to the train station, taking a detour at the Continental Christmas Market that had set up in the park. These continental Christmas markets come into the cities almost every year selling crafts, hot dogs,
stollen and hot mugs, in our case a plastic cup of
gluwein. It wasn’t particularly nice. Anyway, all in all we had a good day out, but I tell you my little feet were really sore from all the walking, that I was so glad when we got home.